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Taiwan's Deputy Minister of Science and Technology visits Tohoku University

A 12-member delegation from Taiwan, led by its Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Yu-Chin Hsu, attended the recent Taiwan-Japan ICT Symposium in Yokosuka. While in Japan, they made a brief stop in Sendai and called on officials at Tohoku University on November 30.

President Susumu Satomi welcomed the group and gave them a brief outline of Tohoku University's history and research achievements. He also mentioned the World Bosai Forum and International Risk and Disaster Conference 2017, which was held in Sendai just a few days earlier.

Tohoku University's International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS) had a major role in the 3-day conference, which attracted researchers and participants from all over the world, including Taiwan.

Deputy Minister Hsu said that he was moved by a keynote speech that President Satomi gave in 2012 at the Taiwan-Japan Science and Technology Forum titled "Tohoku University and the Great East Japan Earthquake: Our Duties and Responsibilities, and hence Our Mission."

Deputy Minister Hsu added that Taiwan and Japan have many things in common, such as their contributions to disaster mitigation and information and communication technology (ICT). He expressed hope that there would be further collaboration in the future between Taiwan and Tohoku University in the field of ICT.

After the meeting, the Taiwanese delegation visited Nei Kato, executive director of the Research Organization of Electrical Communication, as well as the NICT Resilient ICT Research Center. They discussed research into disaster tolerant ICT in the fifth-generation mobile communication era.